Boys Can't Dance
by GingerNutGin
Summary: Inigo always wanted to dance just like his mother.


Sometimes when it was just dark enough for him to conceal himself in the bushes or behind the flap of a tent, Inigo would try to watch his mother practice her dancing.

Some people might have thought it was weird, to see a grown man watching his mother twirl and flow around the ragged battlegrounds to the music in her head, but Inigo didn't mean any harm by it. No one else thought that he did either, especially the other 'kids'.

He was watching her, hidden behind a large barrel parked next to one of the many tents that he had helped to pitch just hours before.

She was amazing, his mother. Every tiny and seemingly minute movement was performed with such fluidity that Inigo often found himself in a trance as he watched her. Maybe he was biased, or maybe he was just too lost in the moment of finally getting to see his mother finish 'that' dance that he had spent so many years wondering about the ending to.

Whatever his fascination stemmed from, Inigo had always been inspired by his mother's dancing. Even in the grim future of his homeland, he recalled being hungry and crying and only being pacified by his mother's dances.

Now, in the 'past', his mother was just as incredible as in the future. The boa and fabrics threaded around her modest slacks and bodice swam behind her motions and steps. It was a tapestry of pink clothes, pink hair and skin pinked from sheer exhaustion.

Inigo wrenched his gaze from her to look at himself. Even if he was huddled far into the shade of the tent and barrel he could still see his hands. Those calloused, rough, damnable hands.

He looked back at his mother. Her hands were feather-light, thin and plush with nothing save for the faintest scars from battles. They were still beautiful, nicks and all.

So why couldn't his hands have been made to be just as nice?

* * *

Sometimes, when the camp was long snoozing in the night, Inigo would leave to go practice his dancing in the woods. He'd take his sword, if only to quell his own guilt in violating the rules by going out alone, but it wouldn't be long before he'd throw it to the ground in favor of trying to mimic his mother's movements.

There, lost within the thickets and brambles of whatever Plegian or Ylissen or Ferox vegetation there was, Inigo would dance. He'd follow whatever dance he had watched his mother do. He'd parrot every step, even down the last flick of a fingertip and purse of the lips.

It was clumsy, as best, and Inigo was terribly shy of even so much as suggesting to anyone in the camp of his efforts to try and practice. By day, he would fight tooth and nail through Risen and Plegians alike, and by night he would retire to work on his true passion, the one very thing that could make him the least bit happy in his 'old' world.

He kept up this endless charade for weeks.

* * *

One night, as Inigo was performing a particularly difficult piece, he was discovered.

"What are you doing?" A little red manakete head poked out from the bottom of the undergrowth. "You're not supposed to be out all alone! I'll tell Chrom!" Her scaled lips were drawn back in a wide sneer, and smoke trickled from her pinpointed nostrils.

Inigo froze in mid-step. He didn't speak or look over his shoulder to where Nah was perched. His arms were paused, rising over his head in a girlish gesture. He blushed. "I…" he stammered. "I was just…"

"What?" Nah cocked her head to the side, the flaky tendrils atop of her dragon-like head flopped about. "Were you dancing? It looked like it when I flew over here."

Slowly, Inigo drew his arms down and labored to face her. He forced himself to smile, that same, delightfully fake smile that he had trained himself to do whenever he got shy. "Well, yes. I was dancing." He stared at her. "What are _you _doing out? And in your dragon form, no less?" He tried to sound all nonchalant, but he was still flushed. No one had ever seen him dancing, at least not that he knew of.

Nah scoffed, her four tiny dragon claws digging into the soil. "Look, my mother won't let me use my dragonstone unless we're in battle anymore, so I came out to test it out some."

"Wonderful! Then we can arrange an agreement, right?" Inigo grinned, and his blush finally ebbed away. "No one ever saw the other, okay?"

The manakete grinned back at him, but with the prickly fangs and glimmering scales, it looked less like a smile and more like a snarl. "Right! No one ever saw the other!" As she unfurled her thin wings, she paused, and her terrible grin softened. "Y'know, since you're so keen on flirting with whatever girls we meet in town, you should try dancing for them. You're pretty good."

And with that, Nah drew herself into the air and flew away, leaving Inigo behind with a fresh blush drawn over his face.

_'You're pretty good'_

Nah never knew it, but from then on Inigo kept that little compliment very close to him.

* * *

It took three weeks for him to gather up the courage to dance in front of the girls that often crowded the town's squares. It didn't matter what town it was or what country it was in. All that mattered was the audience.

Inigo had gone to town alone. He usually did when he went out to try and pick up girls (and, subsequently, fail at doing so). Flirting helped to get his mind off of the shyness that went with going out into public, but it wasn't perfect. His hands still shook terribly whenever he so much as had to look at someone in the eye

He had ensnared three particular girls who seemed quite nice. They all sat around him at a little round table in the darkness of a tiny village tavern. It wasn't much, but it was secluded. Inigo had made sure of that.

When he was certain that they were all alone and the twitching in his fingers was gone, he asked them if they would like to dance.

They said yes, well, one of them did. The other two looked skeptical.

Inigo didn't care. He took the hand that the girl offered him and started to dance. There was no music. There didn't need to be. He just moved with the flow in his mind and hoped that the girl was adept enough to follow his lead.

He tried his best. He really did, but the girls weren't impressed. They told him that he was too 'flashy' and too 'overblown' and then they walked away to some other table with some other guy.

* * *

That night, Inigo went into the forest and cried. He cried for a long time, until his eyes felt puffy and his breath was hitching to the point where the back of his throat felt as if it was being stabbed with every breath.

He muffled his sobs with the palms of his hands and rocked himself back and forth until the sun came up.

As morning came, Inigo stumbled back to camp. Chrom scolded him for being out 'gallivanting too long' and shoved a sword in his arms and told him to get ready for battle.

Everyone else, including his mother, saw the reddened face and only assumed that it was the result of a bad break-up.

Inigo never corrected them.

He only took his sword, looked at the boa laced around his mother's torso, and wished that he could have the same, but he couldn't, because boys can't be dancers.


End file.
